


five ten twenty

by mrecookies



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-28
Updated: 2012-03-28
Packaged: 2017-11-02 15:27:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrecookies/pseuds/mrecookies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A contemplative look at the relationship between Katniss and Peeta in the time between the end of Mockingjay and the epilogue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	five ten twenty

**Author's Note:**

> Written for mandyloo for a long ago auction at help_nz. I know it's kind of sad but idk I just felt like that would be the general atmosphere from Katniss' point of view~ [Original date: 31/05/2011]

We keep busy after everything. When the pages of our book run out and we decide not to ask for more. Doctor Aurelius agreed when I talked to him and so no more parchment sheets arrive. We move on, and commit ourselves to the promises we made to the people that were left behind. Peeta bakes. I hunt. Haymitch is almost constantly drunk. We keep to ourselves, doing what we do best, trying our hardest to do contradicting things at the same time. We pretend, or at least I do, that the Games didn't exist, that people didn't die, that nothing has changed. But how can we do that when the Games were our lives even before we were born?  
  
  
*

  
  
five weeks  
  
"I want to learn how to bake," I say to Peeta one early morning. My bow and arrows lie dormant in their place instead of firing up in my hands.  
  
He looks surprised and suspicious all at once. It's times like this when I wish that we could return to before the trackerjacker venom. I admit that I worry about Peeta snapping out of reality again, with no one to help telling him which world is the true one. It's times like this when I remember what Snow did, how Peeta appeared on the television screens, how he tried to protect me. I scare myself with my rage at Snow, still strong.  
  
"Okay," he tells me, taking out more bags of flour and averting his eyes. "Better start washing your hands then."  
  
Peeta teaches me how to make simple buns. No filling, just flour, eggs, milk, butter and sugar. As I mix my ingredients together, Peeta shows me how he kneads the dough and I can understand why he finds baking soothing.  
  
All my frustration and sadness and loss pound into the dough when it's my turn.  
  
"Good job." His eyes searches mine and he  _understands_  and it cools a part of the fire in me. "Now shape it."  
  
I watch his hands, concentrating how his fingers nimbly twist and press the dough into round balls, filling up the tray in mere minutes. I cannot help but remember how I used to watch Father or Gale set traps during our hunting trips.   
  
Suddenly, I feel tired of hunting. I want to bake and feel soft dough under my fingers moulding into something undefinable instead of harsh wires and muddy ground. I want to spend more time with Peeta and figure out reality and trackerjacker dreams apart. I want to play a different game; I'm tired of death and blood.  
  
  
  
ten weeks  
  
We eat dinner together every evening. Haymitch tries to come when he isn't spending his days and nights slurring drunken thoughts somewhere. Greasy Sae cooks for us with the meat and greens I bring from my trips out; she's like a surrogate mother to us now. Buttercup, the old thing, still sits and waits for Prim from time to time.  
  
"Nice piece of meat you brought back today," huffs Greasy Sae good-naturedly as I sit down at the table. "Should taste mighty fine in the stew I've made. And your boy over here's baked some cinnamon bread. We be eatin' like kings and queens tonight!"  
  
I grin back at her and smile at Peeta as he takes his seat from across me. My smile changes to a look of confused alarm when I see his face turning pale. "Are you all right? Peeta?"  
  
"Fine.. I… I need to go…" he stands up and grabs the back of the chair and I leap up, startling Buttercup as I do. I rush over because I know what's going to happen and my fingers tighten around his shoulders as he shakes and cries in silence. I cannot imagine the images that are running through his head. I don't want to.  
  
It's my turn to comfort him and as we both sit on the couch, my mind flashes back to the time in the cave, on the train, when he held me until my nightmares were quieted. Our hands lock together, gripping tight, the mutual pain a kind of catharsis as time pauses in remembrance of the fallen. It's true that the Games never end. There are so many games to play afterwards, not least the battle against those unseen phantoms from before.  
  
  
  
twenty months  
  
"Oh, look." He points upwards and my eyes follow his finger as he jabs at the night sky. "A shooting star."  
  
I lean against his shoulder and smile. "Want to make a wish, do you?"  
  
"Yeah, all right. You don't have to mock me; I know that it could well be one of the search machines." Peeta laughs, the sound rippling through the air. "Maybe Gale's in one of them."  
  
The rebels (we still called them that, even though there wasn't anyone to rebel against) had built some amazing flying machines with the help of Beetee. They looked much like the planes that people used to fly centuries ago, but were adapted to be as aerodynamic as, well, their namesake.  _Mockingjays._  
  
"Nah, Gale's a hunter. Not a bird," I say, slightly amused at the thought of Gale as a pilot. "But let's say it's a star. What would you wish for?"  
  
He ponders for a moment. "I want… I wish that there'll be less hatred in the world. I can't wish for something that has already happened, as much as I want to. I just hope that there'll be more happiness in the world." Peeta turns his head to look at me, smiling. "I thought about wishing for a sober Haymitch, but we all know that's a lost cause."  
  
A giggle escapes me, and I feel young and  _alive_ , and suddenly I know what my wish is. Because, yes, Peeta made sense. There wasn't any point in wishing for the past to change because it had already happened and perhaps… perhaps there was a reason. "I wish to let go. I want to live again, in the present and for the future. We've been spending too much time in the past, haven't we?"  
  
"Yes. Yes, we have," he whispers. Our hands find each other in the dark outside our house and we spend the evening looking up at the stars, never letting go.  
  
  
*  
  
  
We keep busy after everything. We no longer pretend that the Games didn't exist, because they did, and people did die. Prim died. Rue died. Too many friends and loves gone and changed forever. We're no exception, of course; change, as they always say, is the only constant. Now, instead of morning primroses, dandelions decorate my life.


End file.
